The Progress of Man from Advanced Commentary to Sophomoric Opinion

November 09, 2016

If you're just joining us, welcome to the Trump era. The next four years, assuming he makes it that far, will either be a soaring triumph for the American People, or a boon for late-night comedians. There are some very good things about Trump's election and some very bad things.

One good thing is that this effectively retires Hillary Clinton from public life. Bye, Felicia.

Another good thing is that, with the White House and both houses of Congress in Republican hands, Obamacare would be shaking in its boots right now. You know, if it was a person and had boots. This little experiment in the new American socialism was a clusterfuck from day one, and the American People desperately need to be free of it.

The Second Amendment - a cause near and dear to me, and to millions of other Americans - is safe for a while. That is, unless you live in the Peoples Republic of California, where they just voted to impose background checks to buy ammo.

Trump's victory also means that the anticipated gun rush we all thought would accompany Clinton's win isn't going to happen. Many gun stores around the US stocked up on product in anticipation of this event, and now are holding MASSIVE gun sales. Ammo prices are expected to drop for a while.

There are other good points, but I'm still too groggy to remember them. Some of the bad points are:

The next President of the United States is a man who routinely brags about groping women against their will, then calls it "locker room talk". He refers to women as "a six, at best" or "a two."

I'm guessing that some entity somewhere has already begun looking into ways to build the Berlin Wall on our southern border, even though they have both ladders and shovels in Mexico, most illegal immigration occurs by air, and right now more people are leaving the US than entering it illegally.

The entire First Family have the personalities of villains from Gotham. Eric and Donald Jr. remind me of Uday and Qusay, and we're about a have a Ukrainian underwear model for a First Lady. Classy.

Anything that happens in the political life of the United States that makes the Russians happy is a bad thing, and our next president has already been caught lying about his relationship with Putin. This area of our foreign policy may become very scary at some point in the next four years.

The worst part of all of this, in my mind, is that we have just elected a man who obviously has no regard for the truth, and whose stories and lies shift regularly, depending on his mood. He was both for and against the war in Iraq, believes global warming is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese (but doesn't), accused the first African American President of the United States of being an illegal alien (but that was all Hillary), accused Ted Cruz's father of involvement in the JFK assassination (but didn't), and the list is quite literally several hundred items long.

Wherever you stand on political issues in America, the Trump era is going to be an interesting time.

October 31, 2016

There's so much about this election that I just can't understand. In fact, I have trouble finding anything that makes any sense. This must be what happens when you ask an orange man a question, and the orange man replies with mind-boggling nonsense.

How does someone become a billionaire without being able to form a complete sentence? He repeats his original point, which is full of run-on sentences and sentence fragments, cobbled together to form something somewhere close to a cohesive thought, and then says, "Excuse me, excuse me," and then re-repeats his original point. It's as if he never fully learned his talking points, and is trying to remember them in tiny little bits throughout the interview, and then spews them out like half-eaten Cheerios as they occur to him.

I get that people want change. I want change too. But this guy? How is this guy what you want to run this country? This idiot who can't even express himself effectively, spends half his time refuting other things he's said, and thinks he knows more about military tactics than the generals at the War College (the founders of American military doctrine)? You want THIS GUY to be PRESIDENT?! Did you see how he scoffed at the War College?

Of course, the standard answers will be: He was taken out of context, the election is rigged, the "mainstream media" is against him, he never said that, that's not what he meant, it's blown out of proportion, or "I guess you support Hillary, then."

But just watch the video, all the way through, if you can, and tell me if, deep down inside, you REALLY like this guy, or it you're only voting for him because of the alternative.

July 05, 2007

Remember Abu Ghraib? Of course you do. Abu Ghraib was a tragedy and a travesty. Although it is my firm belief that what happened there was a one-off, isolated case, brought on by some poorly-motivated and poorly-trained lower-enlisted types, some people used that embarrassing episode to ridicule the US Military and the Bush Administration.

Well, of course they did. There's no such thing as a right war, but many see this war as particularly wrong. I disagree, but I'm not trying to get into the politics of war here. I'm simply trying to point out that many people used the images of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse as an excuse to trash our troops in the field.

And I'm not talking about terrorists, Iraqis, or the French (they all did it too, but thats another post). I'm talking about the American media. It was all over the place. Not right or left, but American. Period. And they used those pictures as fodder for some of the most vile, vitriolic hate speech I've ever seen leveled at other Americans during a war.

So, with that in mind, I'd like to include here some further proof of American military behavior in the field, the kind of behavior the American media isn't showing you.

Enjoy.

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I I don't mean to imply that it's all fun and games over there, or that everyone's happy we're there. I don't mean to diminish in any way the simple fact that this is a war. Sort of.

But if you're going to show one side of the picture, and use that to great political advantage, then why aren't you showing the other side as well? Why isn't anyone showing American troops in the field acting like compassionate human beings? Or at least normal human beings? I was there for more than a year, and I nevr say any kind of abuse by American troops. I did, however, see a lot of the kind of thing shown here in these photos, which were sent to me by a friend (I have no idea who took them or when - although the ones with the USMC digicamo must have been taken after the digicamo came out).

Also, I wouldn't want anyone to think that I'm trying to use these pics to justify our being there, or to justify war in general. I'm just like you in that, if I had my way, all of our troops would be home right now. But I don't have my way, and I have to accept that, because to jyust pull them out, without first accomplishing the mission, would be another travesty.

I also have to accept other simple facts about our presence in Iraq and Afghanistan - but like I said above, I'm not trying to get into the plitics of it all. A friend sent these pics, and I wanted to show them to you.

June 08, 2007

Look, I don't like this any better than you do. But while I was enjoying my lunch (or trying to), it was brought to my attention that CNN and Fox News are both running indepth team coverage of the "Breaking News" and "Developing News" story of the day, which is that Paris, after being released from the pen for health reasons, has been ordered back into court by the judge. Apparently, outside of her palacial estate, there waited a Sheriff's deputy to take her back in as soon as she got home.

There were also about fifty MILLION media vans.

So here's my question: This is what you, the American people, care about? This obviously clueless, spoiled, half-witted little princess? This is your major concern of the day?

Or is it simply that the mass media have decided that this is what should be important to you? Does anyone really, honestly, give a rat's ass about this chick? I don't think even Paris Hilton honestly cares about Paris Hilton.

And here's what I would like to do about it: I would like to suggest that the next reporter, comedian, blogger, announcer, animator, writer, drug pusher or pimp who so much as utters her name in public*, gets temporarily deported to Western Dharfur, where he or she can spend the next three to six months (depending upon the severity of the offense) reporting on something that's actually important to the human race.

Or to southern Thailand, to cover the strife occuring between Thai Buddhists and Malay/Indonesian Muslims.

Or to parts of Central or South America, to witness firsthand the effect that the illicit drug trade, fueled by rich Americans like young Ms. Hilton here, has on the poor families and villages who are caught between corrupt governments and narco cartels.

I'd like to do that, but obvously that would violate the free speech rights of a whole lotta folks, who are, after all, just trying to make a living by telling you and me what's really important in this country. Thank goodness we have them - otherwise, how would we ever know these things?

How would we ever know what kind of perfume and underwear Ms. Hilton wears? How would we ever understand how difficult it must be to be her? How hard it must be to not be allowed to come and go as she pleases?

Look. I don't like it any better than you do. But while I was enjoying my lunch, little Paris's little world got sucked into a vaccuum. And thankfully for the rest of us, we have CNN and Fox News to suck us all in with it.

*For our part, Tengu House has placed a permanent ban on further posts containing the name or likeness of, or any other direct or indirect reference to, Paris Hilton. People who are famous just for being famous don't particularly deserve our time. She's a sentient being, and should be treated as such, no different from the rest of us.

May 30, 2007

I was working on a piece about liberal media slant – again – and once again, I got sidetracked. Seems the liberal-media-slant thing may never get done.

One of the things I found while I was perusing the psycho, sicko, yap-yap out there, was this big deal about Cindy Sheehan quitting and going back to wherever she’s from. I got to read her Memorial Day rant, which was nearly incoherent (by that I mean it was difficult for me to follow, as it flew off in different directions at once), and charged that she’s quitting because she’s disgusted by how little anyone’s listening to her.

I feel bad for her, for two reasons. Obviously, the first is the loss of her child.

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I realize that she’s not what the right has called her. I only realized that when I heard the Left call her the same things. I also realize that she claims to be as tough on the Democrats as she has been with the Republicans.

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The truth is that she’s neither. She’s a mother, who’s grieving the loss of her son, Casey. That’s it. Now, I do believe that her chosen method was inappropriate, but I still have to support her right to all that free speech. And free-speech issues aside, ya gotta go with your heart, right? So, while I disagree with her message, and I also disagree with some of the nasty, hate-filled comments I read on her site, I believe she’s doing what she feels she needs to do. I support her (in my opinion misguided) decision to protest, and also her decision to quit (because both were her decisions).

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I just think it was inappropriate because it seems she wasn’t an anti-war protester until her son was killed in the war. It gives the impression that this is a person who thought the war was only wrong when it claimed the life of her son. This obviously opened the door for all kinds of criticism, both earned and unearned. And back when she was still aligning herself with the left (hanging on Jesse Jackson like a barnacle on the Titanic, for example), the left left her out there to get eaten by the albatross she was fighting.

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So there’s the other reason I feel bad for her. I don’t think she belongs in the political arena. I think she’s a simple American mother (I mean simple as a good thing, not to mean slow or dumb or anything like that) who’s dealing with some pretty heavy things. The tragic loss of her boy has left her in too much pain to be objective, so that when she spoke out, she became something of a poster-child for the liberal nut-case crowd. I don’t think that was her objective.

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And that’s something that shouldn’t happen to anyone. They’ve carved her up, served her up, chewed her up and spit her out. They used her, because she believed their line about empathy and sympathy and support and open-mindedness. When they promised to care about her if she’d just champion their anti-Bush cause, she bought it.

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And then they abandoned her and her cause, as soon as she’d outlived her usefulness. Now the liberal left says the same things about her (“attention whore,” etc) that the conservative right used to.

Well, duh. That’s what happens. I get moving where your heart directs you. I even applaud it. But you can't make decisions about where to align your loyalties based on your heart.

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Much of what I'm moved to say here would come across as nasty and hateful on my part, if I were to write it. How do you question someone's motivations without sounding insensitive? Here's what I mean: Cindy Sheehan's misguided protest was kicked off when her son died in the Iraq war. Yes? Now, if I were to point out that not one single person is in the US military except by their own choice, and that not one single person in the US military signed up without the realization and acceptance that they could be sent to war and die, then I would come across as insenseitive. How can you say that? I hear you ask.

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Of course, I can say it because it's true. It doesn't detract from Ms. Sheehan's pain and suffering, and it's not meant to be derisive or demeaning. It's just there. Casey wasn't forced into the military by some faceless, evil Republican war machine. Once he was killed, though, she lashed out in a way that one might expect of a grieving mother. It's not unreasonable, given her situation. But that doesn't make it any more realistic. Doesn't make it true.

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Just in case you were wondering, here's why I call protesting misguided:

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Being the happily-recycled hippie in the modern world only garners the favor of other happily-recycled hippies. I'm not saying it's a bad thing. It's just something that a lot of them seem to get upset about, when they shouldn't. Does that make sense? When you protest against a war, or against immigration policy, or against the local school lunch program - when you stand on a street corner with a sign that says DOWN WITH this or that, or UP WITH this or that, the only people you're going to attract to your corner are people whose minds are already made up. You'll have the other nuts with similar signs, and then you'll have the opposing nuts who want to curse and shout at you and your nuts.

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But you're not changing a lot of minds. You're not doing any good, other than further dividing your own society. I say 'further dividing' because those nuts on both sides are now more polarized in their thinking than they were before. You see this in every instance. In Cindy's case, people who already were against the war are now more against it than ever, while people who supported the war support it more strongly than they did before. And when her protest is over, one morning she wakes up and realizes that the government isn't listening to her and her merry band of nuts, and she's all upset about it. She gets mad, takes her sign and goes home. What she accomplished was, she opened her already-grieving self up to more criticism from all corners, not just the anti-nut nuts but also from the anti-anti-nut nuts.

May 29, 2007

One of my weekend activities is a derivative of the ol’ tried-n-true pastime of “sitting upon one’s rear end, doing nothing.” But in my version, I’m sitting at my workbench, tinkering with plastic models.

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Now, you may recall the models you built as a kid, usually warplanes of some kind. You may have done some other kits too, like Monogram’s old Lunar Lander kit. I remember that one too; mine was a big, gray wad of rubber cement by the time I was finished with it. But the kits that I build these days are of WWII military subjects, primarily Axis and usually armor-specific.

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None of this is the point. But I’m getting there.

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While I’m doing this, I’m listening to the little AM radio I’ve installed on my workbench. Sometimes it’s the usual AM-radio political yap-yap, and sometimes it’s an Astros game. On the weekends, I get to hear several hours of gardening shows (I’m not a gardener), property tax tips, legal advice, and celebrity gossip. But it’s always interrupted every half-hour with the headlines of the moment.

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Oh, and late nights it’s Coast to Coast.

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So, this weekend, on one of these programs (it wasn’t Coast, but other than that I couldn’t say which one it was), when I heard a lady call in. They were talking about the use of Memorial Day observances to protest the Iraq war.

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Now, I don’t have much of an opinion on this one, one way or the other. I mean, on the one side, some people feel that Memorial Day should be just a day of remembrance, and that it’s wrong to use it for political purposes – while others see an obvious link between war and Memorial Day, and feel that it’s perfectly appropriate to use the occasion to voice their opposition.

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Either way, more power to ya. Not talking about the war itself, mind you, but the use of Memorial Day to protest it.

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But this lady who called in said something that I couldn’t let go. It stuck in my heart like a three-inch thorn, and I had trouble sleeping. Of course I didn’t have any trouble eating, but that’s another post.

What she said was that she had a grandson who was serving in Iraq, and that it was up to her to provide for her grandson, by sending packages and what-not – because Halliburton wasn’t doing its job.

Not only that, but there’s clearly no way forward on this issue, because Halliburton has the only supply contract. And that’s not going to change until Bush is out of office.

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Because Halliburton was only brought into Iraq by way of a no-bid, non-competitive contract, through the Cheney connection. Everybody knows that, she said.

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Now, I’m trying (honestly, I am) to take this blog in directions other than political. It would be a major milestone in its evolution if I could just steer my posts away from these petty, narrow-minded issues. In feudal Japan, politicians were considered far beneath the warrior class, and I feel like we’d do well to adopt that particular vestige of the warrior culture.

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But I have to respond to this. I just can’t simply let it go.

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First of all, when people talk about Halliburton in conjunction with the war, they’re usually talking about KBR (Kellogg Brown & Root), which at the beginning of the war was a subsidiary of Halliburton. It was KBR that landed the LOGCAP III contract with the US Government.

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It was also KBR that landed the LOGCAP I contract with the US Government under the Clinton Administration. But no one complained then. No one cried corruption, even thought that was clearly one of the most corrupt administrations in recent memory.

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But never mind that. This woman actually contends that she can do a better job of providing for troops in the field than KBR can.

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This is what I’m been ranting about all this time. She rates a degree of sympathy and compassion, as she's obviously hurting from the fear of what can happen to her grandson. I get that. But when did compassion come to be so one-sided? When did compassion cease to be universal, and come to mean only compassion for her? What about the thousands who've put themselves on that line, out there in the middle of dust-swept nowhere, to feed her grandson? I know they're getting paid, but they're also getting killed. And how much money offsets being burned alive? I mean, at what point do we step back and say, wait a minute, maybe there's something more to civilians being there than a paycheck?

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This is the kind of asinine, inane drivel that pervades the liberal-controlled airwaves and newsprint in this country. This is the kind of moronic, out-of-control hate for the Bush Administration and all things therewith related that we’ve become so accustomed to hearing on a daily basis. It’s really growing to shameful proportions.

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Because not a single thing this woman said is based on fact. Not a single thing. But I can just see thousands of listeners sitting by their radios, nodding in approval.

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Halliburton never had the only support contract. I was in the Middle East on the LOGCAP III contract, with KBR, for nearly a year and a half, and I ran into people from dozens of other companies. Fluor, Bechtel, Parsons, etc etc etc (the list would be quite long), not to mention the non-US companies involved. Dozens of them. Also, there’s no such thing as a no-bid contract. Many companies bid on that contract. KBR won it because of KBR’s proven track record of doing exactly this kind of work (goes back to before WWII). What you've accepted as truth on this is mere BS, based on assumptions about the difference between a contract and a task order. None of this information is difficult to dig up, with a half-hour of research online.

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But we’ve heard all this before. What really offended me was the accusation that our people aren’t doing their job over there. I personally knew a guy who got blown apart bringing a truckload of handy-wipes to a post PX north of Baghdad. I knew another who got abducted by insurgents while delivering a load of hot dinners to some guys on an FOB (I won’t go into what that means, it’s not important for this post).

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It’s true that the profit motive looms big and strong over there. Personally, I see that as a good thing, because that’s what gets a lot of our civilians over there to support those guys. But then, lots of folks disagree with me, and that’s fine. But you can’t say we’re not doing our job. Whatever happens, you can’t say that KBR isn’t supporting the troops. We handle everything from food service to laundry to entertainment. We build everything from gyms to barracks to dining facilities for our troops, embassies for our stuffed suits, and schools, oil infrastructure, military and medical facilities for the Iraqis. We’re laying sidewalks, planting friggin’ trees, surveying roads, and training engineers. We’re helping. We’re doing our part. More than our part, really. And some of our people have died doing it.

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Whether you see what’s going on over there as a good thing, a bad thing, or something in the middle, it’s time some folks take off the anti-Bush glasses for a moment and look at what’s really going on. See it for what it really is. And stop dumping all over the memory of my fallen comrades just to make a political point.

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For you KBR guys:

I’m not a driver and I stayed behind the wire. But I knew some of those April 9th boys, and I understand. These people who sat over here and watched it on the evening news won’t understand, no matter what you say. Don’t let that tarnish their memory.

May 24, 2007

You know, I moved into a new neighborhood about six months ago, but I still drive through the old one on the way to work in the morning.

Anyway, I drive past a church in the old neighborhood that has one of those marquis signs out front, upon which some wisenheimer makes a monthly attempt at pithy humor.

This morning's effort read DEATH - END OF EXCUSES, BEGINNING OF ETERNITY.

Now, here's my question: Um, excuses? I wonder if Mr. or Ms. Pithy was referring strictly to backsliding Christians, as in stop making excuses and come to church; or, to everyone who doesn't attend church, as in stop making excuses and come let us tell you how it really is. I wonder if he or she also meant non-Christians. As in, stop making excuses and become a Christian.

I wonder if he or she sees all other religions as excuses.

I'm probably reading too much into it. It's probably nothing. But I definitely remember, from my church-going years, how the Christian Church teaches that all other religions (except maybe Judaism, since Christ was a Jew) are illegitimate cults, providing excuses for the weakminded to avoid their Christian responsibilities. Being anything other than a Christian was, after all, a form of deviant behavior, reserved only for those who didn't want to fit in.

So, what? Should the sign read DEATH - THE END OF YOU NOT BEING ONE OF US? Should it read DEATH - WE TOLD YOU SO? The implication, if one chooses to see it that way, is that if you're not a Christian (and by extension a member of this particular congregation), death is coming - and whatever you have to say is just an excuse.

And when the day is done, and I'm sitting alone in my contemplatin' spot, I can't help but wonder what these church-going, sign-posting, Jesus-bumpersticker-sporting Christians would name as the difference between their brand of religous intolerance and radical Islam.